Association Of Circulating Tumor Cells And Early Recurrence In Patients Who Had The Liver Transplantation For Hepatocellular Carcinoma

ObjectiveTo investigate the clinical value of circulating tumor cell(CTC) in evaluating early tumor recurrence in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) after liver transplantation(LT). MethodsTotal of 42 patients who received liver transplantation for HCC at Tongji Hospital from October 2013 to November 2014 were enrolled in this study. Preoperative blood samples from these 42 patients were tested for CTCs by the Cell SearchTM system. All patients were followed up for one year. The tumor recurrence and metastasis in these patients were recorded during the follow-up period. Then ?2 test and Cox proportional hazard models were used to analyze the relationship between CTC and tumor recurrence times, clinicopathologic data. Results In these patients with HCC before liver transplantation, the r ate of CTC-positive(CTC ? 1) was 69%(29/42),and the negative rate was 31%(13/42).In univariate analysis, the number of CTC was significantly correlated with tumor differentiation grade(?2=10.403,P=0.006),TNM stages(?2=7.119,P=0.005).Besides, early tumor recurrence after liver transplantation was related with TNM stages(?2=5.599,P=0.010),CTC(?2=6.083,P=0.007) by the same analysis. Cox proportional hazard model revealed that CTC was an independent prognostic factor to determine the tumor recurrence time after liver transplantation(P=0.046). The recurrence CTC-positive patients were earlier than that of the CTC-negative patients(P < 0.05). ConclusionCTC can be used as a reference indicator to judge the tumor recurrence time after liver transplantation.The preoperative CTC?1 in peripheral blood of HCC patients, the tumor recurrence is earlier and the prognosis is worse after liver transplantation.